8 ms·

Living in Paris for a very long time and having started a few businesses (current one: a challenger bank with 20+ employees), I don’t relate to anything you are

Living in Paris for a very long time and having started a few businesses (current one: a challenger bank with 20+ employees), I don’t relate to anything you are saying. Yes there are high taxes, (not half of the salary, for a software engineer it is very often around 30%) but they basically cover a lot of employee services that you would need to pay extra for in the US (health coverage, retirement,...). Most startup in France don’t have « all employees as associate », that makes no sense to me. I currently have 20+ employees with no problem, and most startup are in the same situation. On the VC problem, you are partly right. There are plenty of VC thank you! Partech, Kima, Alven, Daphni... Only to cite the French ones, but you have access to VC everywhere in Europe. It it actually fairly simple to get small investments, but to be honest, it is still a bit difficult to get some large ones (you still have to look for it abroad). I actually don’t see French startups moving there HQ somewhere else, so I wonder where that affirmation came from... maybe you’re just talking about the ones that are expending abroad. Aren’t you just repeating some stereotypes you heard elsewhere? If France were as hostile as you pictured it, how would it have such a dense startup ecosystem and even (God forbids!) some very successful ones?

BiteCode_dev 6y ago
> Aren’t you just repeating some stereotypes you heard elsewhere? If France were as hostile as you pictured it, how would it have such a dense startup ecosystem and even (God forbids!) some very successful ones? Where are they? Cause as a French, I've been living on the startup scene for 10 years, and I don't see those anywhere. There are successful companies, but startup? I hear about a 1000 more US ones than french ones, while I'm literally living next to an incubator.
- ldng 6y ago
  Is it fair to compare France to USA though ? In term of scale maybe comparing to Europe would be better. Are you both saying that you are "living on the startup scene" but don't see any startup ? Or any successful ones. On the top of my head I can already cite you Blablacar, CapitaineTrain, Dailymotion, Deezer as relatively successful for the French market ... Of course if you're looking for planetary mastodon as sign of success ...
  - BiteCode_dev 6y ago
    Those are not successfull start ups, those are companies that make money. There are plenty in france. The startup model assumes you use VC cash to drive explosive growth. Bla bla car took 13 years to slowly becomes the average company it is, being covoiturage.fr before. Deezer barely makes a dent in spotify market despite the fact it was born before. Even french don't know about daily motion, it survives because of all the pirated content it contains. Captain train had a moment, and lost it. The oui sncf service has won. At least if you disagree, none of them scream "explosive growth" in my mind. I'm not saying there are no successful startups. Meetic and free are examples of that in there times. But there's not a lot of it. Next door, ledger was midly successful, and maybe kryll will do something if they manage to get binance on board and then add the forex to their targets, but I don't see a uber, stripe, dropbox, etc. anywhere.
Uberphallus 6y ago
> not half of the salary More than half if you consider taxes on the company. A 30k salary costs the company about 80k. Sure, there are loads of social services, but still. In the company I created we did the work ourselves, and sometimes hired freelancers for certain things we're not familiar/experts in, but without external funding taking one single employee is a major blow to the accouting of a small company. With 20 people you'll soon need to have a comité d'entreprise :P > Most startup in France don’t have « all employees as associate », that makes no sense to me. That's the only way to operate if you don't get external funding. > I actually don’t see French startups moving there HQ somewhere else, so I wonder where that affirmation came from... I'm sure Paris is different, but that's a common pattern for companies founded around Sophia Antipolis, the "Silicon Valley" of France. The startups that tend to stay it's because they have local clients, the rest often leave or die, with notable exceptions (LivePepper comes to mind). > Aren’t you just repeating some stereotypes you heard elsewhere? If France were as hostile as you pictured it, how would it have such a dense startup ecosystem and even (God forbids!) some very successful ones? Nope, I insist, I'm sure Paris is different, but most people don't live in Paris. Also dense compared to where? The Netherlands or Belgium are denser.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- bouzouk 6y ago
  I’m sorry but no: a 30k salary does not cost the company 80k! It costs around 41k, or 49k if you take into account employee taxes (here is a simulator from the French government: https://entreprise.pole-emploi.fr/cout-salarie/ https://entreprise.pole-emploi.fr/cout-salarie/). « Comité d’entreprise » are for 50+ employees and not 20. What’s the use in throwing around fake numbers just to make your point? Even if that sure must be a nice place to live, that is the first time I heard Sophia Antipolis being the « Silicon Valley of France » :) Yes France startup ecosystem is highly polarized around Paris. But hey, just like Silicon Valley right? That’s a very different problem.
  - js4ever 6y ago
    I just use the link you have provided, if you fill the last field (net salary after tax, what is really paid to the bank account of the employee) to 30k/year, the total cost for employer is 57,950€. And not 41k like you mentioned
npsomaratna 6y ago
Out of curiosity, what's the challenger bank you started? I'd love to learn more.
- bouzouk 6y ago
  Blank (https://blank.app https://blank.app) It’s a bank for freelancers and all self-employed workers. It’s launching in a few weeks ;)
  - MayeulC 6y ago
    Hmm, I could be in the market for a new bank a bit later, but what isn't clear on your website is whether the app is mandatory, or the functionality is available trough the web browser? (PWA or WASM binary would be OK, I guess?). I'm using N26 right now, but I have since stoped using closed-source software altogether on my phone, and will likely switch full-time to a pinephone. One of the things that irks me is that multiple services require 2FA trough their proprietary app or SMS rather than TOTP or FIDO/Webauthn/other security-token based tech. Not sure if that's for legal reasons? In any case, that's my number one usability issue with other banks.
    - bouzouk 6y ago
      contact me ;) hackernews at blank dot app
      - Nextgrid 6y ago
        Any chance you can just put the answer here? I am not in the market for a bank right now but would like to know anyway. I think it would be valuable for a lot of readers if you just addressed his concerns publicly.
user5994461 6y ago
Here's the taxes on French salaries for reference. - The company has 60k budget. - 25% goes to employer tax (charges patronales). 45k left. That's commonly called the gross salary (salaire brut). - 25% goes to employee tax (charges sociales). 34k left. Commonly called the net salary (salaire net) - Employee pays income tax at the end of the year. The rate is progressive and highly variable depending on personal situation. (30k left if you're single living alone). Tip: Generally speaking I strongly advise to avoid discussing taxes with French citizens, fact is absolutely nobody understands where money goes to or how much. The usual payslip only shows the "charges sociales" itemized as 10 to 20 lines of things.
- krstf13 6y ago
  This is grossly inaccurate. What you're calling taxes, are fees that allow employee to get several benefits. Practically speaking, these are delayed salary. They include social security, unemployment benefits, retirement benefits, training ... When your employee is sick, they can stay at home without losing their pay, and without your company paying for it. They can seek medical treatment without risking bankruptcy. If you have to lower you activity because business is bad, you can put in place part time unemployment, and your employees won't lose money in the process... Also, the fees paid by the employer are often subsidised through eg tax credits, reimbursements (up to a certain amount)... So that these numbers are not only inaccurate but also totally meaningless.
  - user5994461 6y ago
    French has multiple words historically (impots, taxes, charges) with subtle differences in meaning. However they've not been observed strictly in a long long time. It's all money taken out of the employee pocket at the end of the day. In English it's all translated to "tax" and rightfully so. English languages and cultures don't have subtle semantics like French does. For example everything in the UK is a tax, corporation tax, income tax, council tax, etc... (one exception being the UK national insurance).
    - shard 6y ago
nerbert 6y ago
It’s very common for French people to negate the advantages of the system they live in. France makes it easy to start a company and find seed investment. Paperwork became very limited over the years. People who describe France as startup hostile country live in the past (15-20 years ago)
- throwaway4747l 6y ago
  You're right, with the caveat that France as a country with a strong social safety net and the best healthcare system in the world© is also a thing of the past. We're on our way to become more like the US each passing day, make of that what you will.
  - jbn 6y ago
    w.r.t "best healthcare system in the world" there are only 2 countries that think this of their healthcare: France (because people think it's free... it is not) and the US (because mostly of the quality of emergency medecine IMHO). Of course both are wrong, and it is a meaningless contest anyway.
- AlchemistCamp 6y ago
  So, let's say you're bootstrapping a new business and earning 1500€/month as a solo operator with no employees. How much does the overhead of the endeavor cost you? The costs are minimal in every country I've worked in so far, but I know it's different in others. Would you at least be able to get started for under 500€ and live off of your income in France as long as you lived in a low cost area and didn't have family or medical expenses?
  - jcelerier 6y ago
    > So, let's say you're bootstrapping a new business and earning 1500€/month as a solo operator with no employees. How much does the overhead of the endeavor cost you? If you are earning 1500€ per month you can just be a "micro-company" (this works up to 75k€ per year of gross income). You'll get taxed roughly 25% on that income, and have a fixed fee depending on the city you live - for me it's around 400€ / year for instance. Everything is done by internet, the only thing you have to do is report every month on the state website how much you earned last month, which takes roughly 30 seconds if you have proper accounting.
rihegher 6y ago
Something I never see anyone mention about France taxes is that the biggest your family is the less you'll pay income tax (living with a partner makes the better paid one pay less tax and you'll pay ever less for each kid). Plus you get money for each of your kids that get borned and then money to help you raised them for a few years. Plus you get financial help to get them in a nusery. In short France is a fiscal heaven for families.

BiteCode_dev 6y ago

> Aren’t you just repeating some stereotypes you heard elsewhere? If France were as hostile as you pictured it, how would it have such a dense startup ecosystem and even (God forbids!) some very successful ones? Where are they? Cause as a French, I've been living on the startup scene for 10 years, and I don't see those anywhere. There are successful companies, but startup? I hear about a 1000 more US ones than french ones, while I'm literally living next to an incubator.

ldng 6y ago
Is it fair to compare France to USA though ? In term of scale maybe comparing to Europe would be better. Are you both saying that you are "living on the startup scene" but don't see any startup ? Or any successful ones. On the top of my head I can already cite you Blablacar, CapitaineTrain, Dailymotion, Deezer as relatively successful for the French market ... Of course if you're looking for planetary mastodon as sign of success ...
- BiteCode_dev 6y ago
  Those are not successfull start ups, those are companies that make money. There are plenty in france. The startup model assumes you use VC cash to drive explosive growth. Bla bla car took 13 years to slowly becomes the average company it is, being covoiturage.fr before. Deezer barely makes a dent in spotify market despite the fact it was born before. Even french don't know about daily motion, it survives because of all the pirated content it contains. Captain train had a moment, and lost it. The oui sncf service has won. At least if you disagree, none of them scream "explosive growth" in my mind. I'm not saying there are no successful startups. Meetic and free are examples of that in there times. But there's not a lot of it. Next door, ledger was midly successful, and maybe kryll will do something if they manage to get binance on board and then add the forex to their targets, but I don't see a uber, stripe, dropbox, etc. anywhere.

Uberphallus 6y ago

> not half of the salary More than half if you consider taxes on the company. A 30k salary costs the company about 80k. Sure, there are loads of social services, but still. In the company I created we did the work ourselves, and sometimes hired freelancers for certain things we're not familiar/experts in, but without external funding taking one single employee is a major blow to the accouting of a small company. With 20 people you'll soon need to have a comité d'entreprise :P > Most startup in France don’t have « all employees as associate », that makes no sense to me. That's the only way to operate if you don't get external funding. > I actually don’t see French startups moving there HQ somewhere else, so I wonder where that affirmation came from... I'm sure Paris is different, but that's a common pattern for companies founded around Sophia Antipolis, the "Silicon Valley" of France. The startups that tend to stay it's because they have local clients, the rest often leave or die, with notable exceptions (LivePepper comes to mind). > Aren’t you just repeating some stereotypes you heard elsewhere? If France were as hostile as you pictured it, how would it have such a dense startup ecosystem and even (God forbids!) some very successful ones? Nope, I insist, I'm sure Paris is different, but most people don't live in Paris. Also dense compared to where? The Netherlands or Belgium are denser.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
bouzouk 6y ago
I’m sorry but no: a 30k salary does not cost the company 80k! It costs around 41k, or 49k if you take into account employee taxes (here is a simulator from the French government: https://entreprise.pole-emploi.fr/cout-salarie/ https://entreprise.pole-emploi.fr/cout-salarie/). « Comité d’entreprise » are for 50+ employees and not 20. What’s the use in throwing around fake numbers just to make your point? Even if that sure must be a nice place to live, that is the first time I heard Sophia Antipolis being the « Silicon Valley of France » :) Yes France startup ecosystem is highly polarized around Paris. But hey, just like Silicon Valley right? That’s a very different problem.
- js4ever 6y ago
  I just use the link you have provided, if you fill the last field (net salary after tax, what is really paid to the bank account of the employee) to 30k/year, the total cost for employer is 57,950€. And not 41k like you mentioned

npsomaratna 6y ago

Out of curiosity, what's the challenger bank you started? I'd love to learn more.

bouzouk 6y ago
Blank (https://blank.app https://blank.app) It’s a bank for freelancers and all self-employed workers. It’s launching in a few weeks ;)
- MayeulC 6y ago
  Hmm, I could be in the market for a new bank a bit later, but what isn't clear on your website is whether the app is mandatory, or the functionality is available trough the web browser? (PWA or WASM binary would be OK, I guess?). I'm using N26 right now, but I have since stoped using closed-source software altogether on my phone, and will likely switch full-time to a pinephone. One of the things that irks me is that multiple services require 2FA trough their proprietary app or SMS rather than TOTP or FIDO/Webauthn/other security-token based tech. Not sure if that's for legal reasons? In any case, that's my number one usability issue with other banks.
  - bouzouk 6y ago
    contact me ;) hackernews at blank dot app
    - Nextgrid 6y ago
      Any chance you can just put the answer here? I am not in the market for a bank right now but would like to know anyway. I think it would be valuable for a lot of readers if you just addressed his concerns publicly.

user5994461 6y ago

Here's the taxes on French salaries for reference. - The company has 60k budget. - 25% goes to employer tax (charges patronales). 45k left. That's commonly called the gross salary (salaire brut). - 25% goes to employee tax (charges sociales). 34k left. Commonly called the net salary (salaire net) - Employee pays income tax at the end of the year. The rate is progressive and highly variable depending on personal situation. (30k left if you're single living alone). Tip: Generally speaking I strongly advise to avoid discussing taxes with French citizens, fact is absolutely nobody understands where money goes to or how much. The usual payslip only shows the "charges sociales" itemized as 10 to 20 lines of things.

krstf13 6y ago
This is grossly inaccurate. What you're calling taxes, are fees that allow employee to get several benefits. Practically speaking, these are delayed salary. They include social security, unemployment benefits, retirement benefits, training ... When your employee is sick, they can stay at home without losing their pay, and without your company paying for it. They can seek medical treatment without risking bankruptcy. If you have to lower you activity because business is bad, you can put in place part time unemployment, and your employees won't lose money in the process... Also, the fees paid by the employer are often subsidised through eg tax credits, reimbursements (up to a certain amount)... So that these numbers are not only inaccurate but also totally meaningless.
- user5994461 6y ago
  French has multiple words historically (impots, taxes, charges) with subtle differences in meaning. However they've not been observed strictly in a long long time. It's all money taken out of the employee pocket at the end of the day. In English it's all translated to "tax" and rightfully so. English languages and cultures don't have subtle semantics like French does. For example everything in the UK is a tax, corporation tax, income tax, council tax, etc... (one exception being the UK national insurance).
  - shard 6y ago

nerbert 6y ago

It’s very common for French people to negate the advantages of the system they live in. France makes it easy to start a company and find seed investment. Paperwork became very limited over the years. People who describe France as startup hostile country live in the past (15-20 years ago)

throwaway4747l 6y ago
You're right, with the caveat that France as a country with a strong social safety net and the best healthcare system in the world© is also a thing of the past. We're on our way to become more like the US each passing day, make of that what you will.
- jbn 6y ago
  w.r.t "best healthcare system in the world" there are only 2 countries that think this of their healthcare: France (because people think it's free... it is not) and the US (because mostly of the quality of emergency medecine IMHO). Of course both are wrong, and it is a meaningless contest anyway.
AlchemistCamp 6y ago
So, let's say you're bootstrapping a new business and earning 1500€/month as a solo operator with no employees. How much does the overhead of the endeavor cost you? The costs are minimal in every country I've worked in so far, but I know it's different in others. Would you at least be able to get started for under 500€ and live off of your income in France as long as you lived in a low cost area and didn't have family or medical expenses?
- jcelerier 6y ago
  > So, let's say you're bootstrapping a new business and earning 1500€/month as a solo operator with no employees. How much does the overhead of the endeavor cost you? If you are earning 1500€ per month you can just be a "micro-company" (this works up to 75k€ per year of gross income). You'll get taxed roughly 25% on that income, and have a fixed fee depending on the city you live - for me it's around 400€ / year for instance. Everything is done by internet, the only thing you have to do is report every month on the state website how much you earned last month, which takes roughly 30 seconds if you have proper accounting.

rihegher 6y ago

Something I never see anyone mention about France taxes is that the biggest your family is the less you'll pay income tax (living with a partner makes the better paid one pay less tax and you'll pay ever less for each kid). Plus you get money for each of your kids that get borned and then money to help you raised them for a few years. Plus you get financial help to get them in a nusery. In short France is a fiscal heaven for families.